Raised by the Mafia

38. My Girl (Ryan)

"If necrophilia is your next kink, Luca, find someone else." The tightness in Naz's shoulders seeps into her voice. "I won't die for your pervy pleasures."

"Not everything is meant for you, Mila." The jerk stands up and points at me. His lips are twitching in the manner that asks for a slap. "I expected you to spring Lee, not hop in the car with him. I can't start to fathom whatever has possessed you to do this."

"Keep fathoming." Naz speaks like she's run out of words and now has to borrow each one at a steep interest.

Were it just me, I'd punch Luca in the face and to hell with my life. But it's Naz' life on the line too, so I focus on telepathic evisceration of my nemesis via a stern gaze. Our eyes meet and locking hateful gazes is as unsatisfying for him as it is for me.

I bob my head like, let's go outside, Luca. Outside, where the dogs choke on their rage and the guns chirp bullets. It's well past time we settled our differences like men.

For a mad fraction of a second, I think he accepts my challenge, but his head swivels to his prisoner instead.

"You wanted to answer to the Nazarevich Family? Here's your chance, Boris. Meet Mrs. Kamila Nazarevich."

He doesn't bother to introduce me. I used to hate him with red-hot intensity. Now it turns to a white-lipped one.

Boris lifts his bruised face to study Naz, giving me a chance to catalog the minute differences from Gleb's face. This man's ears are set lower, his brows are slightly wider apart. But if I didn't roll in the back of the pick-up truck next to Gleb's body for forty agonizing minutes, I would have thought the man in front me was Gleb. Twins.

"You hired Gleb?" Boris says in English about as good as Gleb's. The broken nose gives him Darth Vader's nasal monotone.

"Yes," Naz confirms, shifting into a more relaxed stance. "Are you Gleb's brother?"

"We are..." he stammers, trying to swallow an obstruction in his throat and failing. "We were twins."

"I'm sorry for your loss. Boris, right?"

He manages a shaky smile, but winces, spoiling the friendly effect. A fresh drop of blood seeps from the cut on his lip. "Boris, yes. We were Boris and Gleb, after the Passion-bearers."

Some Orthdox saints, perhaps? Not reading recognition in Naz's face either, Boris sighs with appropriate saintly attitude.

"Here's how I know about this—" with his hands tied, he can't point and opts out of tilting his head toward the treasure chest a quarter-inch into the gesture. I wince with him, just imagining how much a fresh blow to the face hurts.

"About Katyusha's bounty," he clarifies.

It's weird on so many levels that of all the people in the world, the four of us stand in this room, listening to the beat-up guy.

"My grandpa was a goldsmith. The best in Georgia, in Russia..." he stops to lick his fat lip. "Anywhere, really, when it came to restoring the historic stuff. Heck, his work is in the Diamond Fund. I'm not boasting, darling, okay?"

I twitch when he calls Naz 'darling', just like the guy in the barn. This local peculiarity is maddening, but Naz only nods. "Okay."

"He traveled everywhere as an expert, much in demand, a respected man. A good man."

The wistfulness in his eyes when he says good man twists something in my gut. Fuck, how many of us can claim that?

"Long and short of it, the shitstorm of Perestroyka hit us, and grandpa turned a pauper overnight, because everyone who wasn't a thief became poor."